Mon language

Mon ( Burmese: မွန် ဘာသာစကား, Thai: ภาษา มอญ ) is an Austro- Asiatic language that is spoken by the people living in Burma and Thailand Mon. In contrast to most other languages ​​of Southeast Asia Mon is not a tonal language, as well as the related Khmer. Mon is used by about one million speakers. In recent decades, the use of the Mon in the younger generation has been steadily declining. Many Mon today only the Burmese language. Most speakers of Mon live in Mon State, followed by the Tanintharyi Division and Kayin State.

The font of the Mon is derived from the Indian Brahmi script and served as the basis of today's Burmese script.

History

In the history of Burma's Mon was a long time until the 12th century the dominant language of the Irrawaddy valley, of the Mon kingdoms of the lower river course up to Bagan at its upper reaches. This remained so after the Mon kingdom of Thaton in 1057 was subjected to Bagan. King Kyanzittha of Bagan (reigned 1084-1112 ) was an admirer of the culture of the Mon and promoted the use of language and in particular the writing of the Sun, which he took as a template for its newly developed Burmese script. During this time the Myazedi inscription that was written in four languages ​​originated Pali, pyu, Burmese and Mon After the death Kyanzitthas the influence of the Mon and the altbirmanische language faded replacing Mon and Pyu as a lingua franca.

In Thailand there are many inscriptions from the Dvaravati era, which are written in the Mon, but the authors are usually not known ( may be Mon, Mon - Khmer or Malay act ). Later inscriptions of Mon (for b. Lavo in ) have the Khmer on opposite submissive texts.

After the fall of Bagan, experienced the language of the Mon a new heyday and was in what is now lower Burma again the lingua franca, especially in Bago ( Hanthawaddy, 1287-1539 ). Since these areas were mostly inhabited by Mon, Mon remained dominant until the mid -19th century. After the British had in 1852, however, the lower Burma incorporated its colonial empire, they promoted the influx of other populations in the Irrawaddy Delta to promote agriculture and rice cultivation. These people brought with them their languages ​​and the Mon has been pushed back to a local language.

Under the British colonial administration, Mon languished there, and after independence, the number of speakers declined even more, because the respective governments of Burma offered no or only insufficient support for the minority languages ​​of the country. Today, especially the old script of Mon almost exclusively by monks dominated. In the areas controlled by the Mon border area between Burma and Thailand, however, there are schools where the Mon is taught and used.

Dialects

There are three main dialects of the Mon in Burma, which can be assigned to the various inhabited by the Mon areas: the central, the Bago and the Ye- dialect. The central dialect is spoken in the areas around Mottama and Moulmein, but understand the speakers of all three dialects among themselves. Somewhat larger differences are found in the Thai -Mon, which is used by Mon in Thailand, but also from all of this dialect Mon tangible.

Font

The old Mon script occurs first in the 6th century inscriptions in Nakhon Pathom and Saraburi (both in Thailand ) and served as the basis of the Burmese script and the Lanna (font ) ( Tai Tham ), for in northern Thailand and Laos Buddhist texts will be used. The modern writing of the Mon used numerous diacritics and letters for phonemes that are unknown in the Burmese. Also there is a big difference between the spoken and the written language Mon.

The alphabet of the Mon has 35 consonants, including a treated as a consonant vowel.